Tech Brew Ride Home - MAYBE TikTok Is A Done Deal (This Time?)

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Ok, ok, maybe the whole TikTok thing is a done deal at long last? Amazon is planning another major round of layoffs. Are Epic Games and Google doing an end-run around the judge? Capital One acquires Brex. And, of course, The Weekend Longreads Suggestions. Trump’s TikTok deal is a gift to China (FT) Exclusive: Amazon plans thousands more corporate job cuts next week, sources say (Reuters) Epic and Google have a secret $800 million Unreal Engine and services deal (The Verge) Apple Expands Hardware Chief's Role (Bloomberg) Capital One Strikes $5.15 Billion Deal for Fintech Brex (WSJ) Weekend Longreads Suggestion: Russia, Ukraine and the race for Chinese drone components (FT) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Okay, maybe the whole TikTok thing is a done deal at long last. Amazon is planning another major round of layoffs. Are Epic Games and Google doing an end run around the judge. Capital One acquires Brex and, of course, the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. There's a ton of chatter right now about using AI agents, but no one seems to be talking about how these agents aren't always. perfect. Sometimes they delete the wrong files or make changes you didn't authorize, and when that

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thereby concluding this six-year legal saga, I think. Get back to me on that. TikTok's new majority U.S. owned joint venture includes investors, Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu MGX, each holding 15% and the Dell family office. BiteDance retains 19.9%. Adam Presser, previously TikTok's head of operations and trust and safety, will be the CEO of TikTok U.SDS joint venture. TikTok CEO, Show Chu will be a director. Quoting the FT.

For ByteDance, this outcome could hardly be more favorable. It lifts a persistent drag at an opportune moment. The company generated an estimated $155 billion in revenue in 2024 and about $33 billion in profit, according to investor estimates outpacing China's older Internet champions such as Alibaba and Tencent. In the first quarter of 2025, it even overtook meta in quarterly sales, making it briefly the world's largest social media business by revenue. With the U.S. question settled, Bight Dance now sits in the top tier of global technology companies and at the center of China's tech ambitions. It is investing heavily in AI. Its chatbot, Dow Bao is the most widely used in China, supported by large spending on computing power. In recent years, it is emerged as a major buyer

of Nvidia chips, planning roughly $14 billion in purchases this year. Trump's deal solved a narrow political problem, keeping a popular app online without backlash. But he has also removed a restriction from a Chinese company that is moving quickly. Washington has stabilized one of Beijing's most important technology companies at a moment when both governments are leaning heavily on their private sectors to set the pace of innovation. Bightance was constrained not by technical capacity, but political risk. That constraint is now gone. Whether securing TikTok's future in the U.S. has made the country safer or simply cleared the runway for a formidable global competitor remains an open question, end quote. And quoting CNBC, TikTok's prized content recommendation algorithm will now be

hosted within Oracle's American data centers, and it'll be retrained, tested, and updated on U.S. user data, the company said. The new structure also helps keep sibling apps like Capcut, Lemonate, and other unspecified services and websites operational in America, the statement said. Although the Chinese government hasn't commented publicly on the deal, Semaphore reported earlier on Thursday citing people familiar with the matter that the U.S. and Chinese governments have signed off on the sale and that the deal was set to close this week, end quote. And quoting Axios. The deal values TikTok US at around $14 billion, a source confirmed to Axios, which is an extremely low price given that TikTok's U.S. entity makes roughly $14 billion annually in

advertising revenues alone per analyst's estimates, end quote. A source is telling Reuters that Amazon is planning a second round of job cuts next week as part of its goal of trimming 30,000 corporate workers after cutting 14,000 jobs just back in October. Quote, jobs in the company's Amazon Web Services, retail, prime video, and human resources known as people experience in technology units are slated to be affected. The people said, though the full scope was unclear. The people cautioned that the details of Amazon's plans could change.

The Seattle online retailer tied the October round of job cuts to the rise of artificial intelligence software, saying in an internal letter that, quote, This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we've seen since the internet, and it's enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before, end quote. However, CEO Andy Jassy later told analysts during the company's third quarter earnings call that the reduction was, quote, not really financially driven and it's not even really AI driven. Rather, he said, it's culture, meaning the company has too much bureaucracy. You end up with a lot more people than what you had

before and you end up with a lot more layers, he said. Jassie had said earlier in 2025, that he expected Amazon's corporate workforce to shrink over time as a result of efficiencies gained from the use of AI. Corporations are increasingly using AI to write code for their software and adopting AI agents that automate routine tasks as they look to save costs and cut reliance on people. Amazon touted its latest AI models during its annual AWS Cloud Computing Conference in December. The full 30,000 jobs would represent a small portion of Amazon's 1.58 million employees, but nearly 10% of the firm's corporate workforce. The majority of Amazon's workers are in fulfillment centers and warehouses.

It would be the largest layoff in Amazon's three-decade history. The company trimmed about 27,000 jobs in 2022, end quote. This is interesting, quoting the verge. A judge is questioning whether Epic Games and Google are settling their long-running antitrust fight partly because of a previously unannounced partnership involving the Unreal Engine fortnight and Android. In a hearing in San Francisco today, the court revealed that Epic and Google have struck a new deal that apparently includes, quote, joint product development, joint marketing commitment, joint partnerships. California district judge James Donato expressed concerns that the agreement,

which he indicated would involve Epic helping Google market Android and Google newly using Epic's core technology, could have led Epic to soften its demands for changes to the overall Android ecosystem. Donato allowed Epic and Google to keep most of the details of the plan. land under wraps, but during the hearing, he quizzed witnesses, including Epic CEO Tim Sweeney and economics expert Doug Barnheim on how it might impact settlement talks, revealing some hints in the process. You're going to be helping Google market Android, and they're going to be helping you market Fortnite. That deal doesn't exist today, right? Donato asked Bernheim, who answered in the affirmative. He also described it as a new business between Epic and Google.

Sweeney's testimony cracked the mystery a little further. He referred to the agreement as relating to the Metaverse, a term Sweeney has used to refer to Epic's game Fortnite. Epic's technology is used by many companies in the space Google is operating in to train their products, so the ability for Google to use the Unreal Engine more fulsome, sorry I'm blowing this confidentiality, Sweeney said. Donato then offered a hard dollar figure on one part of the deal. An $800 million spend over six years, that's a pretty healthy partnership, he said. We soon learned that refers to Epic spending $800 million to purchase some sort of services from Google. Every year we've decided against Google, and this year we're deciding to use Google at market rates, he said.

Sweeney did throw Coldwater on the idea that Epic and Google are jointly building a single new product together, though. This is Google and Epic, each separately building product lines, he clarified when Judge Donato asked what the term sheet referred to with the line Google and Epic will work together. Donato seemed potentially leery of the partnership asking Bernheim whether it could constitute a quid pro quo that reduced Epic's incentive to push for terms that would benefit other developers. Currently, Epic is backing a settlement that would see Google reduce its standard app store fees worldwide and allow alternative app stores to register for easy installation on Android. Sweeney disputed the notion that Epic might be getting paid off to soften its terms when it's the one paying out. I don't see anything crooked about Epic paying Google off to encourage much more robust competition than they've allowed in the past, he said. We view this as a significant transfer of value from Epic to Google. He also says the Epic Game Store won't get any special.

special treatment from Android in the future under this deal. It appears that the settlement arrangement is tied to the business deal, though. Judge Donato suggested that Epic and Google would only make the deal if the settlement goes through. Sweeney says the specific terms of the deal have not yet been reached, but admitted that he expects them to. He told Judge Donato that yes, he considers the settlement and deal, quote, an important part of Epic's growth plan for the future, end quote. Peak pollination season, and my business is scaling fast. To keep the nectar flowing, I need a phone plan with top priority data speeds. That's why I chose GoogleFi wireless.

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Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Sources say that Apple has expanded the job of hardware chief John Ternis to manage the design teams at the end of 2025, which further solidifies his growing status as a leading CEO candidate to maybe replace Tim Cook someday. Quoting Bloomberg, Cook, who has led Apple since 2011 and turned 65 in November, quietly tapped Ternis to manage the company's design teams at the end of last year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That widens Ternus's role to add one of the company's most critical functions.

The responsibilities have special significance at Apple. The role, which includes overseeing both hardware and software design, has long been entrusted to a senior leader. Going back to the Steve Jobs era, the company's success has always been closely linked to how its products look and feel. The role was held by Johnny Ive, Jobs' longtime design partner until his departure in 2019. Tim Cook oversaw design from 2015 to 2017 when I've temporarily stepped back from the position. Jeff Williams, Apple's longtime chief operating officer and Cook's top deputy, most recently held the job until his retirement at the end of 2025. Terenus is now billed internally as the executive sponsor.

of all design on Cook's management team, according to the people who asked not to be identified because the change wasn't public. That entails being a bridge between design staff and Apple's top brass. He represents the design organization in executive team gatherings and manages the group's leaders. Even with the change, there are no signs within Apple that Cook is poised to step down, and when he does eventually retire, the executive is expected to stick around as chairman. Apple told shareholders this month that its current chairman, Art Levinson, would remain in his role past the company's February shareholder meeting, despite the fact that he's now 75, the usual retirement age for directors. That implies a chairman transition won't happen until at least

2027. The Ternus move was made discreetly. The heads of Apple's design teams continue to report directly to Cook in both internal organizational charts and the company's public disclosures. People with knowledge of the move said that Cook himself is trying to expose Ternus to more parts of the company's operations. As senior vice president of hardware engineering, Ternis already worked closely with the industrial design team, which focuses on hardware, but he hadn't previously been responsible for that group or the one developing the user interface in Apple's software. The move is seen as an acknowledgement that Ternus may be better suited to the design role. Cook, who rose through Apple's sales and operations ranks to become CEO, is known to keep

a distance from design decisions. He's had limited involvement with product design since taking the reins, end quote. Capital One has struck a deal to acquire Brex, which specializes in tech to administer corporate credit cards, expenses, and rewards for $5.15 billion in cash and stock, quoting the journal. The privately held Brex founded nearly a decade ago specializes in technology used by companies to administer corporate credit cards, expenses, and rewards. It also oversees nearly $13 billion in deposits held at partner banks and money market funds. The acquisition comes at a key moment in the payments world as fintech and crypto firms threatened to siphon business away from banks. Some established players have looked to team up with these firms to stay competitive with the Trump administration,

signaling less scrutiny of such partnerships and deals. Brazilian entrepreneurs Pedro Franchezi and Enrique Dubugros founded Brex after dropping out of Stanford University. The two ran Brex as co-CEOs until 2024 when Dubrogras stepped off the executive team to serve as chairman of its board. Franchese serves as CEO and plans to continue in the role after the deal closes. Brex became one of the youngest U.S. startups to join the billion-dollar valuation club in 2018. It had been valued at more than $12 billion by 2022, thanks in part to a pandemic-induced growth spurt. Investors in Brex have included hedge fund firms, Tiger Global Management and Loan Pine Capital and Venture Capital firms Green Oaks Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures, according to Pitchbook.

In 2023, Brex got an influx of deposits from tech companies, that had fled Silicon Valley Bank when it collapsed. Higher interest rates and cooling demand after the pandemic made for a tougher operating environment for Brex and other startups, end quote. Just one long read for you this week, but it's about a sticky situation I had never thought of before. The FT takes a look at how Ukraine and Russia rely on the same Chinese drone suppliers whose tech is vital to that war, obviously. Quote, on his numerous visits to the factories of southern China,

Alexander Yakovenko finds that his hosts increasingly plan his arrivals and departures down to minutes and seconds. They sometimes ask him to wait nearby for a while or usher him through side doors, down service corridors, or into empty conference rooms. It took the founder of TAF Industries, now one of Ukraine's biggest drone producers, a while to realize why his arrival at the head office of a camera developer or a battery maker required such opaque rituals of scheduled juggling and extreme punctuality. It was because the Russians had been there, or they were on their way there, or both. Our suppliers make an effort to manage Ukrainian and Russian customers. They try to make it so we will not be in the same factory at the same time, he tells the FT. They invite us for one time, but they invite the Russians for a different time, so as soon as the car with the Russians drives away, the car with Ukrainians goes in, he adds. Drones have emerged as the most decisive and most rapidly evolving weapon in the attritional war between the two countries, accounting for three quarters of recent kids. casualties. Both Russia and Ukraine have moved to build up their own production capability,

but mostly utilizing Chinese componentry. As a result, their militaries now find themselves dependent on the same Chinese suppliers whose processors, cameras, and motors determine how far a drone can fly and how clearly it can see and whose components cost a third of their Western equivalents. Technological advances often reach both sides at roughly the same time. We might see a new video transmitter on Russian drones, and we will understand immediately what company and China produced it, said Oleski Babenko of Vary Drone, another large supplier to the Ukrainian military. So we write to them. Of course, they say, no, it's not ours, but we ask again and they say, okay, we can sell it to you too.

The same process works in reverse, he adds. We ask them to produce something specific for us, and a week later, they send the samples to Russia and then start to produce the same thing for them. Officially, China is neutral in the conflict and has banned exports of sensitive drone technology to both Russia and Ukraine. Western intelligence sources and Ukrainian policymakers charge that China's government puts its thumb on the scale, even allowing better-funded Russian companies to buy entire production lines

for relocation to Russia, despite Western sanctions and Chinese export controls. Ukraine is working to localize production of drones, but Yakovenko says it remains dependent on China for about 85% of the components that go into simple first-person view drones, which are piloted by remote operators, assisted by onboard cameras, and often used for kamikaze strikes, end quote. Nothing more for you this week. No bonus episodes. We're supposed to get socked with more than a foot of snow this weekend here in New York City. So yay. Question mark. Talk to you on Monday. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank.